I had not seen that trick of collapsing before! Thanks a bunch!

Joy

>>I had not seen that trick of collapsing before!<<

Hi Joy, you're right there this morning! :)

It's a good one when there's lots of objects to collapse individually or into a single object. Thanks

Ted

Hello Ted

I am trying to implement your sound advice while learning Max.
I tested the difference between Attach and the Collapse Utility while building an object with multiple parts. Poly count before and after Attach stayed at 103. After Collapse the count jumped to 326 polys. Is this a desirable outcome? All your tutorials stress cost and efficiency, and this seemed a bit odd.

Thank you, Angela

>>Poly count before and after Attach stayed at 103. After Collapse the count jumped to 326 polys. Is this a desirable outcome?<<

Hi Angela,

Generally speaking, the Collapse utility shouldn't change the face count as it doesn't do anything to the geometry...unless you checked the Boolean option.

I tend not to recommend Boolean's in max or viz unless absolutely necessary because they are inefficient, prone to failure, and difficult to control faces.

Could that have been the case with your example?

Ted

Hello Ted

Thank you for your reply.
I redid the Collapse, making sure that I had in fact selected Object, as in your tutorial. Same results. I'll model something else (this was a piece of office furniture) and see if it repeats itself.

Thanks, Angela

>>I'll model something else<<

I've tried a few experiments without getting the face count to increase, so if you do get it to happen let me know, Angela.

Thanks
Ted

Thank you for taking the time. I think I've managed to isolate the problem. (I say I think because I'm really new at this)
Created an object (office unit) with multiple parts, using material with sub-object. I tried two processes. One, assigning the material to a particular surface with the edit mesh material ID.
Two, assigning material with the Material modifier to the whole part although I only wanted one of the polys with the material (eg front face of a door, where I found the modifier only allows me to assign to the whole object). In the first case with the edit poly/mesh modifier, the poly count jumped.
I have paid attention to your warnings about stacks, but I knew that I would be clearing them with the Collapse Utility.
I hope that I've managed to clearly describe the process.
Again, thanks for your trouble. Angela

>>edit poly/mesh modifier, the poly count jumped. <<

I'm pretty sure what's happening is related to terminology, Angela.

Faces are triangular and are the base building blocks of mesh objects, polys (as in Editable Poly) are a different definition of the surface intended primarily for games engines and generally are quads.

A poly usually contains 2 triangular faces, but can have many more so when the geometry is a poly object is has X number of "polys", but when collapsed to a mesh object has many more triangles.

At render time (at least with the scanline renderer, maybe MR) everything is converted to triangular mesh behind the scenes anyway, so Editable Polys can potentially slow you down. I usually convert to Editable Mesh when I'm done with poly editing tools.

Create a teapot, apply Edit Poly modifier and check Object Properties. Then collapse and check again, you'll see the count shoot up.

Hope that helps.

Ted

I am only too aware of meshes, but in Lightscape, which I have used exclusively till now (I'm an architecture lighting designer). Years of experince modeling for Lightscape has instilled some kind of austerity in me! Reading so much about poly count, and your focusing on it in the corrugated metal tutorial, makes me hit the 7 button all the time!!! My main aim is to master radiosity so I can slowly replace Lightscape, no gaming etc. still images rather than animations.
Thanks for the advice re converting to Mesh - I have already used the Subdivide you mentioned in one of your tutorials in order to get 'better' subdivision of surfaces, again my experience talking.
Thank you for all your trouble. Looking forward to a tutorial on photometric lighting and radiosity! Maybe we can work on some kind of comparison between the two programs! Angela

>>My main aim is to master radiosity so I can slowly replace Lightscape<<

Have you looked at Mental Ray, Angela? It seems a bit more forgiving of modeling issues.

MR still has a steep learning curve to make it productive and doesn't have any tools to measure light quantity (not that that has any bearing on the image in radiosity), but it seems to be where things are headed.

It's not where I'm headed right now though, I'll leave that to others! :)

Good luck
Ted

Have looked at MR, and run some tests. The abilty to measure luminance/illuminance and to walk through a lit project are two essentials which i can only do with a radiosity solution. I understand theat MR does support IES photometrics, which I use exclusively. There's not much support out there for a professional lighting designer, in fact most people recommend using dedicated lighting programs. I don't buy that, and I've heard someone like Felix Breton present work that makes me think that I can achieve what I need with Max/Radiosity. I want the ability to present realistic, accurate images, showing my lighting design, not simplistic renderings, a kind of dumming down design. A large proportion of my work is showing work in progress type of images, part of the dialogue I have with the architect. Not just a pretty picture at the end.
A bit of a long reply! Thanks for having taken the time to reply to all the previous! Angela

>>present work that makes me think that I can achieve what I need with Max/Radiosity. I want the ability to present realistic, accurate images, showing my lighting design, not simplistic renderings<<

Unfortunately there seems to be a large disconnect between accurate calculations and good looking scenes, Angela.

At the point where you can take readings of light quantity the scene looks terrible and then there is a lot of "fudging" to make the rendering look good which has nothing to do with engineering.

There was an Autodesk presentation at Siggraph last year that appeared as though it would reconcile the two; but in the end it was all "make it look good" after a few accurate measurements were taken.

I've never heard of any software that does both, it probably a matter of computing power.

Good luck and thanks
Ted

Thank you, sincerely, Angela